The tiny, low-lying republic of Guinea-Bissau on the West African coast has become an important conduit for South American cocaine smuggled via Africa to Europe.

The cocaine trade generates more than 10 times its gross domestic product. The UN Office on Drugs Crime says it has the worst drug-trafficking problem in Africa and is in danger of becoming a 'narco-state' - a country whose politics and economy are dominated by the profits of the drugs trade.

Ethnically diverse, with many distinct languages and cultures amongs its mere 1.6m population, in ancient times Guinea-Bissau was part of the kingdom of Gabu in the Mali empire. Its Bolama archipelago is one of the few places in the world run by a matriarchy.

During its days as a Portuguese colony it was known as Portuguese Guinea. Its other nickname came from its main economic activity - the Slave Coast.

Tribal rulers, made rich and powerful by the slave trade, confined European colonists to the fortified settlements along the swampy coastline where trading took place.

In 1956 the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) began a rebellion against Portuguese rule, and backed by arms from Cuba, China and the Soviet Union soon controlled most of the savanna interior.

The independence war wrecked Guinea-Bissau's legitimate economy, which still depends mainly on farming, fishing, and the export of ground nuts and cashews.

The PAIGC declared independence in 1973 and a revolutionary council took charge. Portugal, distracted by a military coup at home in 1974, made little effort to hang on to its former colony, and hundreds of thousands of local troops who had fought alongside the Portuguese Army were massacred by PAIGC guerillas.

In 1980 Joao Bernardo Vieira took power in a bloodless coup within the PAIGC.

Mr Vieira was elected president during Guinea-Bissau's first multi-party elections in 1994, but in 1998 - after 19 years in power - he was ousted in a bloody army uprising and civil war broke out.

Kumba Iala became president after fresh elections in 2000, but he was arrested and deposed by the army in September 2003. Generals accused him of being "unable to solve the problems".

In 2005, after a year of uprisings, mutinies and abortive elections, Mr Vieira was returned to power in a fresh poll.

During parliamentary elections in 2008 Mr Iala accused Mr Vieira of being the country's "biggest drug trafficker".

On November 23 2008, dissident soldiers fought their way into the presidential palace in a three hour gun-battle, but did not reach the room where Mr Vieira was hiding.

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